


Primary Sources

by Saki101



Series: Other Experiments [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, M/M, Season 2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saki101/pseuds/Saki101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coping with The Fall would always have been difficult for John.  The Experiment just made it more so.</p><p>Excerpt:  Sherlock stood framed by the office door.  The clock’s chime echoed in the high room.  It was quarter past Sagittarius.  “The violin would have helped me think,” Sherlock murmured.  He looked up at the high galleries.  His grandfather had allowed him to practice there if no one was researching.  There had been sweets in the bottom drawer of his desk.  <i>What’s in the flavouring, Sherlock?</i>  Sherlock rarely got the ingredients wrong, as complex and esoteric as they became as he grew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Primary Sources

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of [The Other Experiments Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/15644) which forms an AU frame for _The Experiments Series_ which begins with [Zygomata](http://archiveofourown.org/works/331460). _Primary Sources_ follows [Original Research](http://archiveofourown.org/works/362844).
> 
> Trigger warning for consent issues which are subject to interpretation.

John heard the doorbell ring as he was gathering what he needed for his evening research. He stepped to the side of the window, saw the delivery man at the door. The van double-parked in front of the house looked legitimate, but so had the workman who turned out to be an assassin. John pulled Sherlock’s knife out of the mantelpiece and went to listen by the door.

“Oh, I didn’t think this would get here so quickly,” Mrs Hudson cooed. “Where? Oh, yes. What’s the date?” John couldn’t hear the man’s murmured reply. “The fifth? Already? There you are. Yes, thank you.” The door slammed. John was out on the landing in an instant.

“Mrs Hudson, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about the rent. I’ll get my cheque book or pop round the cash machine, if you prefer,” John said in a rush, already half-way down the stairs.

Mrs Hudson looked up at him, her package clutched to her chest, her smile fading. “Rent?” she repeated, coming closer to the bottom of the stairs. “Didn’t Sherlock tell you, dear?” she asked softly.

 _What else didn’t you tell me, Sherlock?_ “Ah, no,” John said and stopped where he was. 

One of Mrs Hudson’s hands went up to her mouth, plucking at the corner of her lip. “The roof, the water damage. I was fretting to Sherlock about it,” she sighed. “The mortgage has only been paid off for a few years. I didn’t want to take out a loan,” she said, looking up at the hall ceiling. John’s eyes followed hers. “A few weeks before, before…” She sat down on the next to bottom step, her back against the banister, package forgotten in her lap, still looking up to where the _workman_ had been standing on the ladder. “Sherlock paid a year’s rent in advance.” She glanced at John and back up at the water-stained ceiling. “So I didn’t need a bank loan.” Her gaze fell. “I thought he’d told you.” She ran her hand along the package, gave the brown box a little pat at the end of the stroke. 

_Mostly hollow. Probably a DVD._ John shook his head, sat down on the stair. He hadn’t told Mrs Hudson what Lestrade had learned about the hit men until the tattooed fellow had been in custody and Lestrade had needed her to give a statement. _Funny all the different reasons we don’t tell people things._

“It’s hard to stay mad at him,” she said. She was giving the box two pats after each stroke along its top. “He always seemed to be doing exactly what he pleased, but actually he was taking care of us.” The box got a sound smack. Mrs Hudson got up, waved a hand in John’s direction and hurried into her flat.

“Yeah,” John agreed to the empty hall.

**************** 

Sherlock was pacing between the tables, into the office and out again, considering the ornate clock over the door to the main library each time he faced it, each hour a sign of the zodiac in wrought iron and silver bas relief. It was half past Scorpio. Sherlock had expected John by half past Libra at the latest and had hoped he might arrive even sooner. John’s body had been so responsive. Sherlock had been sure John would come as soon as possible. Certain. 

The clock chimed, the silver hammers producing a clear, delicate sound. “Where are you, John? I have work to do.” Sherlock muttered, rapping his knuckles along the tables as he passed. “Texting was so much easier,” he said, throwing himself into the office and onto the sofa. He buried his face in the folded sheets on the far end. “I need you here. Now. For the work, John.” 

Sherlock turned his head towards the desk. _I should hack into the surgery computer. Did you have to work late?_

************* 

John had made himself a cup of tea when he came in from the hall. Made it and let it get cold on the coffee table as he sat on the sofa and stared at the door. “I was looking forward to researching this evening,” John said quietly. “You succeeded. It was _you_ , wasn’t it?” John’s head lolled against the back of the sofa. “Something else you did a few weeks before…’cause you saw I liked the lecturing? E-mailed an old professor or friend of the family, did you? ‘Ask John Watson to write about this. He likes to play with words. It will distract him from the loneliness.’” John rubbed his hand over his face, let it drop onto the cushions. “Mrs Hudson’s right. It’s hard to stay mad at you.” John rolled his head to the side, looked out the windows. The light was almost gone. He slept.

************* 

Sherlock stood framed by the office door. The clock’s chime echoed in the high room. It was quarter past Sagittarius. “The violin would have helped me think,” Sherlock murmured. He looked up at the high galleries. His grandfather had allowed him to practice there if no one was researching. There had been sweets in the bottom drawer of his desk. _What’s in the flavouring, Sherlock?_ Sherlock rarely got the ingredients wrong, as complex and esoteric as they became as he grew. 

He went into the room beyond the office, grabbed his new laptop, scooped up one of the sheets from the sofa on the way past and slipped behind the nearest bookcase in the reading room.

************* 

The shriek of a siren sliced through John’s sleep. His eyes flew open. Blue lights strobed across the ceiling. John leapt towards the window, jerking back the curtain, startled lungs grabbing air. An ambulance was edging through the stopped vehicles at the intersection, its frantic alarum reverberating off brick and stone. John let the curtain drop, wiped his palms on his jeans, felt the fob wedged deep in his pocket against his thigh. 

*********** 

Sherlock sat cross-legged on the floor of the highest gallery, the sheet draped over his shoulders, the computer perched atop a stack of folios. A streak of light crept along the reading room floor. Sherlock pressed a key, shut the laptop and pulled one end of the sheet towards his face.

************* 

When he finally got to Bart's, it had been hard not to run in the corridors, but he had managed. The stairwell was empty. John took the stairs two at a time. 

His breath was coming fast as he entered the door code incorrectly the first two times, the lock whining in frustration. John swore quietly, hoping not to draw the attention of the librarian or the medical students scattered about the main library. He stared at the fob, punched the numbers in again, slowly. The mechanism chirped. He slipped into the dim room, shut the door and sagged against the wood. The dark air closed around him, comforting and sweet. John slid down to the floor, tilted his head back and drank it in.

The clock above the door chimed, ten clear notes rising to the dome. John raised his eyes with the sound, found the full moon shining through two of the rotunda windows, its twin beams picking out brass curves and marble profiles as they fell. John’s breathing slowed, deepened. He flattened his hand against the mosaic floor, traced the shapes in the uneven surface with his fingertips.

“Is it possible to be infatuated with a place?” John wondered, his voice too loud in the silent room. 

He was attached to the flat in Baker Street, to the whole neighbourhood. Some people thought that going away was the thing, but John didn’t. He wanted to stay where he could see the sad smiles of those who had cared before they forgot the tall figure in the billowing coat who trailed a whirlwind of excitement in his wake.

John’s eyes were adjusting to the shades of dark in the room, favouring the twilight in the dome, the grey paths of the moonbeams, to the deeper shadows into which the walls disappeared. This was different from Baker Street. His history with Sherlock wasn’t embedded in its walls with bullets and harpoons, but it _felt_ like Sherlock somehow, a citadel of knowledge, the grand hall of a…mind palace. John pushed himself to his feet, walked to the nearest table, shaking his head at the fancies taking flight. He eased his laptop bag off his shoulder, clutched the back of a chair to steady himself. The catalyst was surely the resemblance in the portrait, but he couldn’t dispel the image of Sherlock as a child playing under the tables, running up the narrow, hidden staircases, along the balconies and memorising the incorrect positions of the planets from the ceiling. John sat down heavily. 

“Is this my miracle, Sherlock?” he asked, the words directed upwards. John considered whether he'd developed that habit because he was shorter than Sherlock or whether it was because of their last conversation. “You couldn’t give me your future, so you've given me your past?” 

********* 

Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your aim is always true, John. Your incisions deep," he whispered.

********** 

John had slumped over the table, head pillowed on his laptop bag, by the time Sherlock wound his way down the stairs and stood over him, sheet wrapped carefully over his mouth and nose. His fingers twitched. He wanted to touch, to rip the cloth away, lean close to John and inhale. 

Instead, Sherlock moved to the door, reset the key pad to lock out all codes except his before he knelt in front of John, slipped his hands beneath the jacket, under John’s arms and stood.

“Sleep,” John grumbled groggily and batted at Sherlock’s arms.

“Soon. Just a few steps,” Sherlock said, manoeuvring them towards the office door.

“’Don’t tell me things,” John said, his body growing heavier against Sherlock’s side. 

_Incisive._ Sherlock tapped in the code for the office door, leaned John against his hip as he opened it and guided him through. Sherlock's glance flickered from the open door to the next room to the sofa and back to the other doorway. It was farther than the sofa.

“Why?” John sighed, his feet not landing flat on the floor anymore.

 _Right to the bone._ Sherlock considered the sofa again, took a deep breath and adjusted his hold under John’s arms. 

“Rent,” John mumbled. “Rent,” he repeated more quietly, his whole complaint conveyed in the downward slide of his tone.

“Ah,” Sherlock said, lowering John to the bed. Sherlock bent to take off John’s shoes and socks, to lift his legs onto the mattress. The feet looked vulnerable beneath the heavy denim. Sherlock clasped a bare instep. “You may never forgive me for any of this,” Sherlock said, one fingertip tracing the curve of the arch, his other hand unwinding the cloth around his face. “But I can’t tell you yet and I can’t do it without this anymore.”

Sherlock reached for the small blue bottle on the night table without letting go of John’s foot, pulled the rubber stopper out with his teeth and held it under John’s nose. John jerked his head away. Sherlock drew back, relinquished the foot and took up the cotton wool on the table. Soon John lay still.

*************** 

Sherlock had just sent an anonymous e-mail to Lestrade identifying the employee at the Tower who had assisted Moriarty, given Lestrade enough evidence of prior convictions which hadn’t been listed on the man’s job application to warrant questioning, when John began nuzzling along Sherlock's side. Sherlock checked the time, set John’s computer on the night table and turned to watch. It was 0500. Even with the…physical activity, John should feel rested by now, although full consciousness should still be several hours away. Sherlock rubbed his hand through John’s hair, down his neck. John responded with a possessive hand under Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock adjusted his weight against the pillows behind him, shifted his hips slightly forward. John’s hand pushed between the curves, stroked lightly back and pushed forward again.

Sherlock’s hand tightened on John’s shoulder. He found the testimony to John’s erotic experience unsettling. Surely there was a formula to be discovered. How many partner/hours allowed one to be proficient when semi-conscious? Contemplating the number of partners who must have helped John hone his skills was less interesting than Sherlock had thought it might be. John began nipping at Sherlock’s side as he slipped a finger inside Sherlock. Sherlock’s eyes closed, his other hand straying down between his legs, his knuckles brushing against the side of John’s hand and wrist as he moved rhythmically in and out.

 _Easy entry this morning._ Sherlock focused on the sensation of John inside, thought about never being closed to John again.

He had wanted to be inside John last night, the desire coiling low in his stomach as John lay naked on the bed, moist from kisses. But then John would know in the morning and he couldn’t know yet.

John's finger twisted. Sherlock pushed his leg wider. "Mmm," he murmured. John's lips were warm along Sherlock's skin, his finger knowing inside.

Sherlock had thrown his clothes on the floor as he'd taken them off last night, crawled over John and straddled his hips. He had reined in his eagerness and settled slowly onto John, watching his expression change as he engulfed him. Finally, Sherlock began to rock to and fro, his eyes never leaving John's face, memorising how the pleasure altered John's features. And that had been the first time last night.

John was using his tongue now, edging up slightly under Sherlock’s arm, his finger never stopping its leisurely exploration. Sherlock turned his shoulders, gave John a chance to encounter a nipple. John was good at taking chances, even in his sleep. Sherlock’s hand tightened around himself, there were still traces of oil on his hand, in his hair. He stroked. John hummed and suckled and pushed, his rhythm dreamy and constant.

Sherlock followed John’s lead. Sherlock would have gone faster, impatient, but John had shown him different ways. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. John clearly knew about these things. Sherlock's chest was raising and falling more rapidly, despite the relaxed pace. John murmured against Sherlock’s skin and Sherlock tilted his hips up a bit more. John hummed more loudly. Sherlock gave his sigh voice. It spurred John to push deeper, to crook his finger. The feeling travelled up Sherlock's spine and down to his hand, his grip tightening as the fluid pulsed warm across his chest. He clutched John against his side, wanted him closer still, always, always closer.

Sherlock’s body settled, his breathing loud. John bit, thrust his hips against the mattress. The semen tickled as it trickled down Sherlock's side; he opened his eyes as it reached John’s cheek and his tongue darted out, sweeping across Sherlock’s skin. John's muscles tensed. Sherlock kept John close as the tremors washed through him.

*********** 

John woke up on the sofa, confident that he had had a wet dream, or two. He considered that commendable at his age, but worried about the upholstery. The sheet beneath him appeared unstained. He didn’t recall making up the sofa, but assumed he had. He stretched luxuriously, regarded the portrait on the opposite wall, which was, of course, watching him. John snorted.

“Nothing’s been normal since I met your progeny,” he said, addressing the figure. “Why should it start being normal now?”

 

The sun was streaming into the Rare Books Room when John shut the office door behind him. The greens and browns and dark reds of the books glowed, the gilt lettering and polished brass glinted. John’s eyes went up to the highest galleries, the figures in the murals looking almost alive in the calm, white light. “I’ll not be late tonight,” he promised them before he walked across the room. “No matter what I find out Sherlock’s done…or not done.” John turned around at the door to the main library. “I shouldn’t have teased him about having a mind palace,” John said. “I didn’t understand." His gaze swept around the room again. "But, then, I didn’t have enough information.” _Now, if I search hard enough, I think I will._ He took a deep breath and pulled the fob out of his pocket. His eyes flicked from the digital read-out back to the sunlit dome for a moment before he faced the door. "Stine's depending on me," he whispered as he punched in the code. 

Sherlock stepped out from behind a half-open bookcase when the door shut after John. He smiled. His muscles were sore, but his thoughts were moving at the speed of light.


End file.
